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On 13 June 2025, retired Colonel Richard Kemp appeared on BBC Radio’s Stephen Nolan Show to discuss Israeli military strikes on Iran. Introduced simply as a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan and counter-terrorism expert, Kemp praised Israel’s actions as “very successful” and speculated that the Iranian regime might collapse under the pressure of Israeli airpower.
What listeners were not told – again – is that Kemp is a director and trustee of UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers (UK-AWIS), a British charity that raises money to support the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
This omission by the BBC is all the more striking given that, just days earlier, the UK Charity Commission issued an official warning to UK-AWIS for serious regulatory failings, citing misconduct and mismanagement in the administration of the charity, after investigating the charity for using footage of the killing of Palestinians as a fund-raising tool.
The Commission’s June 9 warning accuses UK-AWIS trustees – with the retired Colonel Kemp among them – of failing to exercise adequate oversight of the charity’s digital content.
The breach involved a video, hosted on the charity’s website and YouTube channel, which contained what the Charity Commission called a “distressing scene”. This footage, first flagged in investigative reporting by Byline Times, appeared to show thermal imagery of Palestinian individuals being targeted by the Israeli military.
The concern was that a UK charity had used footage of Palestinians being killed by the IDF to raise money that then offered support for members of the IDF.
According to the Charity Commission, the trustees had outsourced editorial control of the website to a PR agency and a former executive director, and allowed third-party material to be uploaded without review. In so doing, the trustees had “failed to act in the charity’s best interests” and “exposed the charity’s reputation to unnecessary risk”.
The Commission ordered UK-AWIS to review all its media content, implement a proper social media policy, and ensure trustees familiarise themselves with official guidance.
UK-AWIS’s latest financial account show that the charity spent more than £53,000 on legal and professional fees in the year to 31 March 2024 – a large sum for a charity of its scale. The trustees attributed this expense to the Charity Commission’s investigation into its fundraising materials.
An “overseas consultant” – presumably from Israel – was also listed as being paid over £52,000 but is not named.
The accounts also refer to UK-AWIS adhering to social media guidelines provided by an unnamed “third party,” possibly the IDF.
Meanwhile, the charity still does not maintain a public-facing website, despite raising more than £750,000 in donations that year.
That Kemp remains a public voice on matters relating to Israel and its wars, even after damning regulatory scrutiny, should raise serious questions for the BBC.
This is not the first time the broadcaster has failed to declare his links to UK-AWIS. In November 2023, following a Newsnight segment on Gaza, the BBC admitted it “should have made [Kemp’s] connections with Israel clear.”
On the Nolan Show, Kemp was once again presented as a supposed independent analyst. He confidently assessed the success of Israeli strikes, played down Iranian capabilities, and warned of future instability in Tehran.
At no point did the BBC inform listeners that this same man helps run a UK charity, currently under official sanction, which collects money for Israeli soldiers, and maintains close institutional ties to Israel’s military leadership.
UK-AWIS’s stated mission includes supporting the welfare of “serving and discharged Israeli soldiers and their families”, but its activities have gone far beyond that.
Prior to being taken offline, its website promoted donor packages such as “Adopt an IDF Combat Unit” for £75,000, and “IDF Enlistment Festival” sponsorships for £140,000.
The Israeli branch of the charity confirmed to Byline Times that its overheads, including those of UK-AWIS, are covered by Israel’s Ministry of Defence.
This lack of disclosure comes amid wider scrutiny of the BBC’s reporting on the Israel-Gaza conflict.
A recent report by the Centre for Media Monitoring accused the broadcaster of downplaying Palestinian suffering and amplifying Israeli perspectives. The BBC was reported to have referred to Israeli deaths up to 33 times more frequently per fatality than Palestinian ones, with Palestinian casualties often rendered in passive language and stripped of personal detail.
An internal BBC source also described to Byline Times an editorial culture deferential to Israeli military claims, sceptical of Palestinian voices, and reluctant to use terms like “war crimes” or “ethnic cleansing”, even when cited from UN experts.
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The BBC told Byline Times: “We had intended to make Colonel Richard Kemp’s connections with Israel clear in the interview, and regret that this oversight occurred during the live programme.”
The Charity Commission told Byline Times that it had “issued an Official Warning to the UK Friends of the Association for the Wellbeing of Israel’s Soldiers, in relation to a video posted on the charity’s website which included a distressing scene”, and added: “We have an ongoing regulatory compliance case into the charity which remains open to allow us to follow-up actions set out in the Official Warning. As part of our compliance case, we found no evidence to substantiate concerns that funds were raised or provided to the Israeli Defence Forces.”
The Charity Commission have been asked to clarify how the UK-AWIS’s donor packages such as “Adopt an IDF Combat Unit” or “IDF Enlistment Festival” sponsorship do not constitute providing funds to the IDF, indirectly.
Kemp did not respond to a request for comment before this article was published.
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